L.L.: "Everybody here is doomed, but if you work with me I can save the school and your friends, start a revolution three years ahead of schedule, and everybody-"
Shoko: "Let's secede from the Union!"
L.L.: "...
...
This amuses me. Proceed."

So, L-elf is totally Lelouch, right? This is secretly the third season of Code Geass, after he gains immortality and becomes L.L.? He talks the same, he has the exact same style of chessmastery... and whatever's going on in the hero's blood looks an awful lot like a Geass effect.

Hear me out for a bit (unless you object to Code Geass spoilers, in which case do not read this paragraph). Everything makes perfect sense if this actually is the third season of Code Geass. To start with, Lelouch/L-elf. In the first series, he was a perfect chessmaster; when he knew who he was playing against, what pieces were in play, and what rules were in effect, he would devise a plan which would win, regardless of difficulty, if it was even theoretically possible to do so. However, when a piece was added, a rule changed, his opponent not who he expected, or the game begun without his knowledge, his carefully laid plans would rapidly collapse leading to costly failures. His weaknesses are inflexibility and overconfidence. At the end of the series, he was publically stabbed through the heart by Suzaku/Zero as the last stage of a Thanatos Gambit to create a relatively peaceful and pleasant world, with the last scene implying that he had somehow survived and escaped; this would presumably be accomplished by taking C.C.'s immortality from her, as she'd wanted all along and he had previously refused to, and thus regenerating from the supposedly fatal assassination.

Move forward a few centuries. L.L. (all immortals we saw in Code Geass were known by a repeated initial, like C.C. and V.V.) finds himself once again living under a corrupt, militant, and totalitarian government. This time he doesn't have an existing resistance movement to draw on, and he's learned some from his first failure, so instead of reacting quickly and rashly he makes plans to start another Revolution and take over in a few years. In the meantime he gains the trust of the military. Holding off a full brigade while working alone would seem too much for even a chessmaster of that level, but when you factor in his own immortality and decades if not centuries honing his combat skills it becomes believable. He leads his team on one of his perfectly planned missions to steal the Valvrave, but Haruto enters the game as an unknown quantity and fouls it up. He attempts to salvage the plan after the first big flashy battle, now that he knows the robot has a pilot, but he was unaware of the vampiric properties and gets blindsided once again. Shift forward to his imprisonment and questioning. Now, he's just dealing with a military he's probably studied for a decade, and incompetent soldiers at that; fifteen minutes preparation is plenty to deal with 200 men and ground the ship that was to be used for evacuation. He makes his way to Haruto (knowing where he would be and what he would be doing because L.L. would have been very familiar with the Senator in charge of the evacuation and handling the new war hero), and this time he knows the kid's powers, some part of his personality, and a significant portion of his motivation. He can't quite recruit him on the spot, but he's sure that he will be successful soon, and then with a super robot and a body-surfing vampire under his influence he can move his revolution plans forward two years; with only the Senator (a completely known quantity) opposing him, a bundle of generic irrelevant students on the board, and the Dorissian military on the way there's no way he can lose. That's when Shoko enters the game. She's not just a piece added to the board, she's a whole new player, which throws L.L.'s careful scheming right out the window... but also brings up a possibility that he'd never even thought of, and makes the game interesting enough that even a jaded immortal like him starts to genuinely enjoy it.

Ugh. I've been hesitant to call this show outright bad, but this episode was just plain stupid.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

First off, L-Elf wants Haruto to make a contract with him to bring down Dorssia. The big question is why should Haruto or the audience trust this? He's shown absolutely no signs of being disloyal so far. And as for calling your predictions prophecies; I'm sorry, but that is so preposterous and arrogant beyond belief, yet I feel as if the show wants us to believe him.

With Shouko, first off, how does taking off your clothes make people agree with you? I think that's a very important question. Moving on, how does she expect they're going to survive in the future? They'll be the enemy of all nations, so how does she expect to acquire food? You could say from Jior, but it's clear they are working together with Arus, and Arus would likely consider trading with them a hostile action. On top of that, they are a nation of high school students. Who in their right mind is going to take them seriously?

With Arus, while it would be standard protocol to leave the students behind if they could only save them or Valvrave, why would you start shooting at kids when they ask you about it? Not only would any shred of morality you have have to be gone for you to do it, it's just as likely to cause a riot and problems for you guys as scare them away.

On a side note, it's clear now that Shouko is a supposed to be the next Cagalli Yula Attha from Gundam Seed. Both daughters of a small neutral nation's President wielding political power. The difference is that while Cagalli was forced into things and she did a pretty terrible job, Shouko took the initiative and performed things well, or at least, that's what the show wants us to think.

I'm sorry if this was little more than a long rant, but this episode just really got to me.

I think you'll have to take hpulley's advice above and check all logic circuits in with the Kakumeiki OP. I haven't seen Gundam or Code Geass, so I guess I'm lucky that I'm not seeing the poor plot line rip-offs! Of course it does help to come to the forum and have a good snark as well. Then we can all maintain that we are intelligent adults and this show is a lifestyle choice!

Well, I am rewatching Tari Tari and in episode 7 when Sawa's father tells her she can't go to horse riding school she starts taking off her top until her mother stops her... I guess getting naked to embarrass people to get your way is the norm for girls in Japan? Or just in anime? Not sure...

I can totally see why a father wouldn't want his daughter stripping in front of him, but bless the bashful boys of the Student Council - you'd have thought they'd all be cheering her on. Chivalry lives: huzzah!

I'm actually really curious about Sunrise productions now, anyone want to recommend another particularly poor show of theirs? I feel I'm developing a taste for the ridiculous...